6 Years Ago
SAMMIE FOUND HER brother on the swings.
The park was empty, despite the bright, sunny day. The neighborhood kids would still be in school, with summer still just around the corner.
“You okay?” Sammie settled into the swing next to Atticus, kicking off the mulch to rock herself back and forth, falling into a slow, easy motion.
Atticus sniffed. “I’ll be fine.” His eyes were red, glued to the ground beneath him. White knuckles gripped the chains at his sides.
“I’m sorry, Attie.” Even though it wasn’t her fault. Even though they’d both seen it coming.
Atticus had pulled her aside, not even a half hour after he’d arrived back home. He was done with his classes for the semester, and had news that he’d wanted to share with Sammie before anyone else.
Atticus wouldn’t be going back to school in the fall. He’d received an offer from a team, the Chicago Wildcats, and he was going to take it. His last two years playing volleyball at the college level had shown that he was a rare talent, and he didn’t want to let this opportunity pass him by.
He also wanted to come out publicly. Not in some big showy way. Nobody cared about some bisexual volleyball rookie. But it was important to Atticus that he didn’t have to hide that part of himself from the public eye.
He’d told Sammie as much, and even though she knew she would support him no matter what, the announcement had settled like rocks in her gut. Because if Atticus wasn’t going to hide himself from the world, he wouldn’t be hiding himself from anybody.
“She loves you.” Sammie was close to tears herself.
Atticus sniffed harder, swiping at his eyes. “I know. Still sucks.”
Greta hadn’t taken his announcement well. Maybe it was because Atticus lacked grace or subtlety, proudly announcing his sexuality without preamble. Their granny had gone silent. Cold. And Sammie couldn’t help but wonder if that was worse. Worse than raging anger or distraught anguish.
The quiet, judging resentment, the knowledge that Greta loved them despite who they were… that part stung. Almost as much as her simple dismissal, closing herself into her room, leaving the two of them with a quiet, “Don’t bring any of that into my home.”
Sammie reached out, grabbing her twin’s hand and tangling their fingers together, squeezing with everything she had as tears finally pushed past her lashes.
“I have a girlfriend now.” Atticus let out a burbling, thick laugh.
And it was true. He’d been seeing the same woman for a couple months.
Sammie didn’t think it would last—none of her brother’s relationships went on for very long—but still, it’s not like he was dating a guy.
Even so, Greta hadn’t cared. He was sullied in her eyes now, something tainted, broken.
He had strayed from the correct path, and as far as their granny was concerned, he wouldn’t find his way back unless he closed off a part of himself.
Sammie was so proud of him.
“Maybe she just needs time.” She whispered the words, as if saying them too loud would tempt fate.
“Thanks, Sammie. For being there.” Atticus squeezed her hand back. They’d stopped swinging to sit motionless. The sun was a warm balm against Sammie’s skin. Atticus tugged her hand, pulling her gaze up to his face. “Whenever—if ever—you want to do the same, I’ll be there.”
Would she, though? Would Sammie ever feel safe enough to tell Greta that she, too, was queer?
The thought was terrifying, a hand gripping her throat, choking off air.
Sammie was out to most people in her life, but she’d never found the courage to let that part of herself come to the surface at home.
“I couldn’t do it without you.” Sammie gave his hand one last squeeze before dropping it, kicking off the dirt once again, letting the breeze wash over her as the swing carried her back and forth. “Do you still have plans tonight?”
Atticus nodded. “Kieran’s back home for a couple weeks. Said I could pick his brain about going pro. We’re gonna get pizza at the new place over on Main Street and take it back to his parent’s house, you wanna come? He’s meeting me here.”
Sammie hadn’t seen Kieran in two years. She successfully avoided him, since that day in the rain. Not that it was hard to. He was living his own life away from this place, playing on a national level, experiencing so much beyond their small town.
As though Atticus had summoned him, the sound of footsteps met Sammie’s ears. She looked up to see a face so familiar, yet so unknown at the same time.
Kieran had filled out. The muscles of his arms tugged at the sleeves of his polo, the fabric stretching across his chest. He’d lost the roundness of youth in his face, his features now more angular, sharp, but still so sweet.
His beard had filled in, though he kept it cropped short.
Strawberry blonde curls framed his face, and half of his shoulder-length hair was tied back.
He looked good, really good. Sammie felt a flicker of the past, of the feelings she thought she had done such a good job suffocating, flare back to life.
“Hey.” Kieran waved at both of them, offering Sammie a small, tentative smile before turning his attention to her brother. “How’d it go?”
Sammie thought that Atticus looked on the verge of tears once again as he chewed his bottom lip. “Not good, man,” he finally answered. “Not good.”
Kieran frowned. “I’m sorry. You don’t deserve that, either of you.”
That spark in Sammie’s chest flared brighter. Neither she nor her brother had ever had to hide anything from their friend. It had never really occurred to Sammie just how valuable a thing that was.
“I think I’m going to stay home tonight.
” Sammie’s words were for her brother, though her eyes couldn’t help but flick back toward Kieran again and again.
She couldn’t be expected to act normal around her long time crush after such an emotionally draining day.
Besides, Atticus needed some time alone with his friend.
Sammie could see it in the tense line of his shoulders, in the way his gaze didn’t want to focus on any one thing.
It would be good for him, talking with someone who had gotten away from this tiny midwestern town with its antiquated values.
Sammie hopped out of her swing, ready to leave the guys to their evening, when strong arms tugged her close, wrapping around her shoulders.
“Thank you,” Atticus whispered into her hair. Sammie held on to him tight as she could. He was strong, brave, everything she wanted to be, and she was so, so proud of him.
“Love you, Attie.” She pulled away, ruffling his bleached-blonde flop of hair. “Have fun tonight.”
Her granny didn’t speak to her for the rest of the evening.
Or the following morning, as Sammie readied herself for a shift at Olive Garden.
She had been serving for the last two years, in between business classes at the local community college.
She didn’t love the work, but it was money she could set aside while she still lived at home.
With Atticus going pro in the fall, Sammie hoped to find something closer to the city. Closer to him.
Greta kept her distance for several days.
Sammie didn’t push, even if every second of that cold silence raked over her skin like broken glass.
Would this be the new norm for them? Would there forever be a crack spread between her granny and her brother, an impassable chasm that had spread too wide for any bridge to reach the other side?
After a week or so, things went back to normal, or some semblance of it.
Greta was speaking to them again, though Sammie noticed the subjects never veered too close to things like relationships and dating.
Where Greta had always been so invested in that part of their futures, she now seemed to have closed herself off to the possibility of either of her grandchildren settling down.
Why should she care anymore, with the possibility of one of them ending up with someone she didn’t deem appropriate forever looming in the background?
Their new way of being, the tiptoeing dance around one another, it did become the norm. Atticus moved to an apartment in the city, and after a few months, he offered Sammie his spare bedroom. Greta cried, both of the children she raised finally leaving the nest.
But Sammie knew a part of her would always be stuck there, back home. Something stunted, something secret. Something unknowingly, unfairly shamed.
Even as Sammie fell into the routines of her new life, finding a new job, new friends, new desires and dreams, that part of her stayed back home, locked away from the light.